The police are at war with the people.
It’s time for the people to be at war with the police.

9 months ago, jail guards in the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center in Denver, murdered a homeless street preacher, Marvin Booker. Videotape of his brutal murder exists, but has never been made public. The Denver District Attorney declined to file charges against the deputies responsible.

No one has faced any justice for Marvin’s murder.
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On May 3rd, Denver will host city wide elections for a new mayor and new city council members. Though most of the mayoral candidates have promised a change in the local police forces, the results of this election will change nothing.

No matter who is elected, the police will still terrorize our communities.

High profile cases of police violence fill the headlines of local media. Officers beat, taze, and pepper spray residents of the Denver Metro Area with impunity. Though several tolkeinized terminations have recently taken place, these firings will ultimately not stop the police terror raging in our neighborhoods and streets. In Aurora, police execute Russian migrant youth merely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Denver, police raid homes and beat whole families.

This isn’t a case of a few bad apples. The whole orchard is diseased and rotten.

As the U.S. military occupies countries across the world to maintain control over a global economy that impoverishes billions, police forces across the United States occupy neighborhoods to maintain a social order that impoverishes millions in this country.

The poor and working class are beaten, murdered, imprisoned, evicted, raped, abused, and tortured in Iraq and Afghanistan by U.S. soldiers and in Denver by local police officers and other state agents.

We’ve marched three times in the last year, and our rage has become something that cannot be dismissed.

On May 6th, on a weekend that will see celebrations honoring the memories of struggles, revolutions, and people’s victories from centuries ago, we will fill the streets.

Whoever is elected on May 3rd, they will understand the power of the people they hope to control and govern after May 6th.

May 6th- Into the streets!
For Marvin Booker!
For Oleg Gidenko!
For all of us!

The following is a statement issued by the Denver General Membership Branch of the IWW calling anti-capitalists to converge on the April 4th labor actions in Denver. There will be an anti-capitalist and radical worker’s bloc participating in the march beginning at 11:30am at 17th and California as well as a presence at the later rally and vigil.

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NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO COMPROMISE

SEIZE THE TIME!

The uprisings in Europe, then North Africa and the Mideast, and in the United States are not a coincidence. They are, at least in part, a common rebellion against a common enemy that threatens to make working people pay for its plunder and failures: the neo-liberal policies of unregulated capitalism, croney government, and phoney “banking”. We believe the best of what workers have spoken so far is not reforming a crippled and crippling capitalist system, but for the working class to step in as replacements for bundling bankers and bungling politicians.WE HAVE A CHOICE TO MAKE: WE CAN LET OUR MOVEMENT BE CHANNELED TO WEAK REFORM AND ELECTORAL MEASURES OR WE CAN PUSH ONWARD NOT JUST FOR WORKERS’ RIGHTS IN THE OLD SYSTEM BUT FOR WORKERS’ POWER to control our own work, our wealth, our well being. Early in the last century the newpaper The Messenger, founded by A. Philip Randolph, called for mass strikes and workers’ control as “the antidote for capitalist poisons”.Continue reading →

TO THE STREETS! – SATURDAY, JANUARY 29TH AT 6 PM. DENVER SKATE PARK.
FUCK THE POLICE

It has been more than six months since the senseless murder of Marvin Booker by the Denver Sheriff’s department. Marvin, a homeless street preacher booked on minor charges, was only asking to grab his shoes when he was choked, beaten and tazed by five jail guards before succumbing to death. His killers were cleared of any wrong-doing, even amidst a roar of public outcry, and internal affairs refuses to release the multi-angle video of the incident to the family or the larger community demanding accountability.

Marvin isn’t the only casualty of Denver’s police. In fact, it’s getting difficult to keep track of how many people have been brutalized by the police across the state this year. Lawsuits are flooding the courts, ranging from accusations of racially motivated assaults to coercive rape. Presently, there are police in the Denver metro area being investigated for sexually abusing children and possessing vast troves of child pornography. The police are shooting first and spinning it in the media later far more often than the typical “isolated incident” pattern their public relations departments shill us. These are not “our neighbors” or “people just trying to do a job.” They are sociopathic, power-hungry, violent fiends. They are our enemies, they are extremely powerful, and they are at war with the people of this city.

But there is resistance. In the last six months, Denver has seen numerous rallies and vigils, and they all too often end in a defeatist state of mourning where participants typically resort to shouting reasonable demands to unreasonable and uncaring institutions which are hardly even listening. There have been marches and demonstrations where revolutionary militants, marginalized people and street folk united to block traffic, trash a police car, and face the cops in the streets. This battle must expand and it won’t stop until there is real justice, vengeance, and palpable accountability. Real actions need to be taken. We will not be stomped on, exploited, or abused by this false authority any longer.

Join us and others at the Denver skate park at 20th and Little Raven on Saturday, January 29th at 6 PM for a demonstration and march through the city. Take a stand against police violence and reclaim the streets for our community. Bring your friends, family, crew or colleagues. On the 29th, we will stand in solidarity with the victims of police violence everywhere, and we will remember Marvin Booker. We will remember the bloodied faces and cracked skulls courtesy of the Denver police. We will be angry, loud, and unforgiving. Our rage won’t be stopped until we are truly free from oppression.

REMEMBER THE VICTIMS, NEVER FORGET MARVIN BOOKER!
FUCK STATE AUTHORITY, POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
EVERYONE TO THE STREETS JANUARY 29th!

Hundreds of prisoners in Georgia have been on “strike” for nearly a week, refusing to work, leave their cells, and in many instances, eat.

They are demanding payment for their labor (Georgia currently pays prisoners nothing for prison labor), better living conditions, decreased costs for phone calls and stamps (Georgia’s costs for these “privileges” are among the highest in the nation) access to education, access to programs that curb substance abuse, and other improvements to the physical conditions of prisoners’ lives in Georgia’s penitentiaries.

Folks on the outside need to step up and show some solidarity with the prisoners of Georgia! Demonstrations have happened in Atlanta and other large cities in the south, with a large demonstration in Richmond slated for the weekend.

Denver Anarchist Black Cross, a social movement defense organization active in the Denver Metro area, is calling for people of conscience in Denver to show solidarity with the courageous rebels in Georgia, who at this very moment are facing extremely violent reprisals for their actions. In several facilities, heat and hot water have been turned off to the cells of striking prisoners, and violent beatings and cell entries have become the norm.

Bring signs, your feelings of love, solidarity, and rage at the prison industrial complex and the ongoing repression and criminalization of poor and working people across the country as we connect the struggle in Georgia’s prisons to the conditions here in the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center, where Marvin Booker was murdered by guards in July.

This Friday, there will be walkouts and a march on the capitol building in Denver as part of a state-wide and nation-wide action of solidarity with the resistance to SB 1070 in Arizona.

Ya basta! Say no to racist Arizona bill (SB 1070) that was passed into law on Friday, April 23rd @ 1:30pm.

Exactly a week later….WALKOUT in the Denver-metro area this Friday, April 30th (part of a state & nationwide action).

We can’t let history repeat itself!
Not in Arizona…Not anywhere!

1953-56: “Operation Wetback” – Local police and border patrol officials detained and deported EVERYONE they suspected of being undocumented, many of which were actually US citizens. In total, over 2 million were deported from across the US.

April 23, 2010: Passage of SB 1070 in Arizona – Regardless of whether a crime is being committed, police MUST demand proof of citizenship of EVERYONE they suspect is undocumented and arrest those who cannot provide it. This backward and divisive law promotes racial profiling and terrorizes the community.

WALKOUT in the Denver-metro area this Friday, April 30th (part of a state & nationwide action).

In most cases, students will walkout @ 1:30pm (depends on travel time & to be determined at each school…for example: Lincoln @ 12pm)

This May 1st we’ll come together and celebrate our collective radical history, the struggle for workers’ rights, and autonomous people’s movements, while building our current communities of resistance!

The day’s activities begin at 2 p.m. Meet at the Old Town Square–look for the black flags and a banner or two. We’ll set out on a celebratory street dance and head to a nearby park where we can enjoy free food and each others’ good company.

Bring yourself, your friends, and revolutionary desire! If you wanna bring a banner, masks, costumes, extra food for the picnic, or anything else you feel is appropriate–please do!

Denver Anarchist Black Cross hosts a film night to benefit the over 150 people who were arrested during the rebellions in response to the January 2009 police killing of Oscar Grant III in California.

On the night of January 7th, a protest of the execution became a riot in downtown Oakland as barricades were formed, businesses were vandalized, and luxury cars, police cruisers and city vehicles were smashed and arsoned. Rioting continued on January 14th and 30th.

Over a year later, felony charges remained against two individuals–the charges against JR Valrey were recently dropped; Holly Works’ trial begins in April. Both are facing high legal fees.

Donations will go to help defray the legal fines of the Oakland 100.

A discussion will follow the short film, copies of ‘Unfinished Acts’ (a detailed and illustrated narrative of the Oakland riots) will be available, and refreshments will be provided.

Please come support the Oakland 100 and celebrate rebellions against the police.